• 278 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 278 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 280 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 680 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 684 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 686 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 689 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 690 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 691 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 692 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 693 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 697 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 697 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 698 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 700 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 700 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 704 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 704 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 705 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 707 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
Major Diamond Mine Slashes Production

Major Diamond Mine Slashes Production

Angola’s Sociedade Mineira de Catoca, which…

Lunar Mining May Commence As Early As 2025

Lunar Mining May Commence As Early As 2025

Plans to start mining the Moon as…

Arkadiusz Sieron

Arkadiusz Sieron

Writer, Sunshine Profits

Arkadiusz Sieron is a certified Investment Adviser. He is a long-time precious metals market enthusiast, currently a Ph.D. candidate, dissertation on the redistributive effects of…

Contact Author

  1. Home
  2. Commodities
  3. Other

Super-Cycles: Why Gold Is Set For A Breakout

Gold

Cycles, cycles everywhere. We’ve already discussed the current state of the U.S. business cycle, arguing that the expansion should last for a while, although it is more advanced than in Europe. However, business cycles aren’t the only creatures living in an economic zoo. They are simply the most popular within the modern macroeconomics. The post-war business cycles lasted, on average, almost 6 years. But economists distinguished also shorter cycles, called Kitchin inventory cycles, which are believed to be caused by lags in entrepreneurs’ reaction to the market signals (and the resulting changes in inventory accumulation or reduction), and which average 40 months in length. The typology of cycles also recognizes much longer cycles: the Kuznets swing and the Kondratiev wave. The former is caused by infrastructural investments and lasts 15-25 years, while the latter is linked to changes in technology and keeps on about 45-60 years. As the Kuznets swing is sometimes considered to be a part of the Kondratiev wave, we focus here on the latter.

The idea of “super-cycles” was developed in 1925 by Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev, who identified three phases of the cycles and believed that their key drivers are social shifts (changes in inequity, opportunity). However, the theory has been refined over the years and it is currently divided into four ‘seasons’:

Spring: economic upswing, technological innovation which drives productivity, low inflation, bull market in stocks, low level of confidence (winter’s legacy);

Summer: economic slowdowns combined with high inflation and bear market in stocks, this phase often ends in conflicts;

Autumn: the plateau phase characterized by speculative fever, economic growth fueled by debt, disinflation and high level of confidence;

Winter: a phase when the excess capacity is reduced by deflation and economic depression, debt is repaid or repudiated. There is stock market crash and high unemployment, social conflicts arise.

In particular, Joseph Schumpeter significantly modified the original concept, linking the cycles to innovations. Their accumulation leads to technological revolutions, which transforms societies and launch Kondratiev waves. Related: How Low Can Bitcoin Go?

There have been five such revolutions in the modern capitalist economies:

• The Industrial Revolution (started about 1771)

• The Age of Steam and Railways (1829)

• The Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering (1875)

• The Age of Oil, Electricity, the Automobile and Mass Production (1908)

• The Age of Information and Telecommunications (1971)

The chart below displays the last three waves, which are approximated by cycles in the rolling 10-year earnings yield (inverted P/E ratio) on the S&P 500 Index. When the new technology enters the scene, the average return starts to increase, while when technology approaches its limits, the average return on equities declines.

(Click to enlarge)

Chart 1: Rolling 10-year earnings yield on the S&P 500 Index from 1881 to February 2018.

We currently live in the fifth age, but the sixth technological revolution is coming. Brace yourself for The Age of Cybernetics, High Technology and Clean Energy. Just think about all these technology breakthroughs: nanotechnology, biotechnology, renewable energy, machine learning, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, Internet of Things, robotics, electrical and autonomous vehicles, etc.

OK, robots are great, but what does this have to do with gold? Well, each long wave brings new ways of doing things more efficiently, increasing economic productivity and boosting the pace of growth. Some economists explain the Great Recession and the following slow recovery pointing to reaching the limits of the present technology. Thus, when the sixth revolution arrives, gold may struggle.

Related: Morgan Stanley’s Top 10 Short-Term Stock Picks

However, gold bulls shouldn’t fall into despair. The diffusion of technology takes time – and it occurs with pain on the way. Technological innovations lead to social changes, which can create conflicts or even wars (the new technology empowers certain people who threaten the old elite). Some analysts argue that the third cycle actually peaked with World War I and ended with World War II.  As Kondratiev wrote,

“It is during the period of the rise of the long waves, that is during the period of high tension in the expansion of economic forces, that, as a rule, the most disastrous and extensive wars and revolutions occur.”

The implications are clear. The new technological revolution will bring prosperity, but it will be born in pain. And what it the best cure for pain? You are right, shiny gold, which hedges against economic turmoil. It all depends on the phase we are in right now.

As the global economy recovered and now expands, inflation is low, while stocks still rally, we enjoy spring. This is why gold’s remained in a broad sideways trend in the last few years. However, as we are on the edge of the next technological revolution, confidence is finally rising and there are worries about higher prices, and we could enter the summer phase in the not-so-distant future. As inflation goes out to sunbathe during summers, gold should welcome that transformation.

By Arkadiusz Sieron via Sunshine Profits

More Top Reads From Safehaven.com:

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment